I haven't confirmed this but according to my research the last year they let D2 Champs compete in the D1 tournament was 1991. Dan Russell was reported to be the last D2 AA.

Dan Russell
NCAA Division I Collegiate Championship
Year Weight Place Points Team View
1990 158.0 4 Portland State University
1991 167.0 4 Portland State University

USA Junior Greco-Roman Championship
1986 165.0 1 Oregon [team]
NCAA Division II Collegiate Championship
Year Weight Place Points Team View
1988 150.0 1 Portland State University [team]
1989 150.0 1 Portland State University [team]
1990 158.0 1 Portland State University [team]
1991 167.0 1 Portland State University [team]


Dan Russell is a champion. While wrestling at Gresham High School, he won four state titles while compiling a perfect 95-0 record — with 87 pins. At Portland State, where he still holds the all-time pin record, he became the second person to win four Division II national championships. He’s won silver medals at the Pan American Championships and the World Cup and, in 1995, became only the second U.S. wrestler to ever win Russia’s Poddubny Tournament, an international competition billed as the toughest tournament in the world. (With Russian coaches, Russian officials and as many Russian wrestlers as want to enter, it isn’t uncommon to see the host country place 1-6.) The win earned him the unofficial title of Champion of the World.

Suffice it to say, Russell’s resume carries some weight in the wrestling world; so it wasn’t surprising to see the McMinnville High School wrestling team wide-eyed and eager to soak up every bit of knowledge he was willing to share Friday morning during a two-hour clinic.

“It was awesome,” Mac High senior Andi Hari said. “We got a lot of knowledge passed on to us today.”

Hari was Russell’s tackling dummy for the first hour Friday — he got a reprieve when Russell tabbed Jules Johnson to work with him for the second hour. Hari couldn’t see many of the techniques shared in the same way as his teammates, instead finding himself staring down at the mat, up at the ceiling or straight into Russell’s chest; the first-hand lessons were, in many ways, even better.

“It’s definitely an experience,” he said. “You learn a little more when it’s being done to you. When you can’t actually see what he’s doing, you’ve got to tune in really closely and pay attention to every detail. I think you pick up a lot of the little things more.”

Russell ran the clinic with enthusiasm and intensity, teaching holds, throws and finishes in incremental steps, scattering the wrestlers to work in pairs for several minutes before calling them back together to go over the next move with a quick, sharp whistle. And, while the tone was serious, not 10 minutes passed without Russell eliciting a round of smiles and laughs — even while punishing the group for a few slow-moving stragglers with a set of five precisely timed pushups.

“I really enjoy doing these,” said Russell, who used the films Karate Kid and Kung Fu Panda as teaching tools throughout the morning. “I talked with them about the importance of giving 100 percent, and that’s something we’ve got to do in life as well. When I teach, whatever I do, I want to do it to the best of my ability. And, if I do that, I think the enthusiasm shows through, and it is fun.”

Now a pastor in Battle Ground, Wash., Russell conducts clinics like Friday’s often, working to give back to the sport that gave him so much while trying to help young athletes learn lessons not only about wrestling, but about life.

“Wrestling has been very good to me,” he said. “I’ve been to 44 different nations because of wrestling. It’s an incredible sport, and this is an opportunity for me to give back. It’s an opportunity to teach a lot of things about the sport, but my hope is that kids learn that what makes them successful on the mat are things they can apply to the rest of their life to be successful there, too.”

In that vein, the final lesson Friday was not physical, but mental. It is a lesson that, Russell told the wrestlers, helped him defeat so many opponents, including those with whom he had no business “even holding their shoes.”

“I got to the edge of the mat, I closed my eyes and I asked myself two questions,” he said. “I knew if I could answer those two questions correctly, I was a champion. The first: Have I, in practice, given 100 percent to be the best I could be with what I have been given? If the answer is, ‘Yes,’ the second: Am I willing to go out now and give 100 percent to be the best I can be with what I have been given? If the answer is, ‘Yes,’ no matter what the score, you’re a champion. And you’ll win more than you lose.”

Mac High coach Shawn Keinonen said that, as important as the moves Russell taught may prove to be for his squad, the mental lessons — those that can and should carry over into everyday life — were the biggest.

“I think that wrestling is an extremely difficult sport, not just physically, but mentally,” he said. “It’s a grind. And those two things, I think, were a loud and clear message to the kids.”

And that’s exactly what Russell wanted.

“I think that, often, what sells papers, what sells stories, is all the bad things that happen,” he said. “I think that’s where a lot of people get the wrong impression, because they focus just on the negative things. But there are great things happening in this generation. I get to go around and see kids all over that are engaged ... they’re driven. They’ve got goals. They’ve got dreams. And I think that’s exciting to see.”